Reclaim Calm in the Chaos: Time Mastery with Walt Hampton

Busy As A Shield

0:40 SPEAKER_00: If I asked you how you were doing today, would your answer be something along the lines of, oh man, I'm just so busy. Oh, I've been so busy lately. For those of us who are navigating the unpredictable waters of a loved one's mental illness, busy is often more than just a full schedule. It's a shield. We stay busy so we don't have to feel the weight of the chaos. But what if that constant state of doing is actually what's keeping us from healing?

Meet Walt Hampton And The Mission

1:11 SPEAKER_00: I'm Michael McNak, and this is the Holding It Together Kinda podcast. Today we're joined by Walt Hampton for a conversation that I can only describe as a lifeline. We're not talking about corporate productivity or this hustle culture. We're talking about clarity as a form of self-preservation. Walt is going to help us to dismantle the myth of a perfect balance and replacing it with something much more sustainable. A strategy for reclaiming your focus, your energy, and believe it or not, your joy, your happiness, even in the middle of a family crisis.

1:50 SPEAKER_00: If you feel like you're drowning in to-dos while your own heart is on the back burner, this episode is for you.

2:01 SPEAKER_00: We are live and rolling, Walt. How are you?

2:03 SPEAKER_01: I'm excellent, Mike. I'm so happy to be with you. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to be with you and your community. I so appreciate it.

2:12 SPEAKER_00: Oh man, I no way. We I owe you a big, a big one for this. And okay, okay, okay, you do. We are we are, I mean, one of the things I sent out to to the group was, you know, this whole idea of what are some of the things that you're interested in. And and I mean, so many people came back that they're they're all interested in in the concept of time management. And I said, well, as I I don't know if you saw, I've been calling you father time lately. Let me go to father time and see think about how that fits.

2:42 SPEAKER_00: It's not an age joke, I promise. It's not a joke. But everybody, hey, whoever's out there listening, I appreciate y'all being here, and I want to welcome you and thank you for being here. This is Walt Hampton, the Walt Hampton coming to us all the way from Ireland. So once again, we are international. Let me just tell you about Walt from my perspective, and then Walt could tell you about Walt. But Walt is, as I am, a recovering attorney.

3:11 SPEAKER_01: I'm much better now, Mike.

3:13 SPEAKER_00: Yes, much better now. Me too, me too. I feel the same way. Walt and I have a very circuit circuitous route of how we met each other, but let me just say that Walt has been involved in the self-improvement space, the personal development space for over a decade. He started, I don't even know if he started, but I know he's been with Tony Robbins and Tony's coaching and his programs. He has been in STERS still is with Jeff Walker in the product launch formula in that group. Walt is the leader of the School of Education for Book Yourself Solid Coaching and Speaker Training, where we met officially.

3:52 SPEAKER_00: And you know, he's also the head of a mastermind group that I that I belong to called Summit Mastermind, and it's an awesome real give and take group that that people are just really supportive of. And I thank you for for that group. But the reason that the oh, and and I should mention, you know, as I said, Walt lives in in Cork, Ireland, Cork County, Ireland, where I have been, where there's palm trees, right? Walt, I've actually there's palm trees in Cork County, Ireland. He's there with his lovely bride Ann, who's a good friend of mine as well.

4:23 SPEAKER_00: And but the reason that we're here today is because of this book. And you could see it pretty good there, I assume, right? Can you see it, Walt? I can see it.

4:31 SPEAKER_01: You remember this book, Walt? I remember it. I have a few copies.

Why Time Mastery, Not Management

4:35 unknown: Yeah.

4:36 SPEAKER_01: I'm actually waiting for the movie to come out myself.

4:41 SPEAKER_00: Well, Father Time, let's hope that it happens. Anyway, the book is called The Power Principles of Time Mastery. Do less, make more, and have fun by D. Walthampton, JD. And let me just say this, and I'm not trying to blow smoke on it. I don't think I've ever said this to you before, but I'm gonna say it. I I'm an author, I've written a couple books. I have one, as you know, in progress right now that I'm very excited about. I have to tell you that reading this book is so great. It's such a great read, and it's such an easy read because your voice and your personality comes through in this book.

5:19 SPEAKER_00: And knowing you as well as I know you, I could say that. And I can't pay a higher compliment to a writer than what I just said. I mean, I think that's amazing. It's an amazing feat to accomplish, and and it's it's kudos to you for that. So let's start with. I was curious, thinking about talking with you today, about why you wrote the book. What got you interested in the whole time management, time mastery? Because this goes beyond just time management.

5:48 SPEAKER_01: Well, as you correctly observed at the outset, it's everyone's challenge. And, you know, in our former profession, I don't know about you, but when I came out of Cornell in 1984 and went with the big firm, we had a billing target of 2,000 hours a year, and I measured the value of my life in six-minute increments. And so I became very cognizant of time. And when I went out on my own, capturing time, billing time, booking time, pretty critically important. I became a single dad in the course of my life.

6:30 SPEAKER_01: And so I ended up managing a law firm and raising three young boys on my own, which was a pretty challenging time period. Could have been one kid and it would have been challenging. Yeah. So, you know, time is everybody's challenge. And, you know, you don't have to go very far to ask people, you know, how are you? I'm busy. We are all busy. We live in a culture of overwhelm. And so time is such a huge challenge. And I think if we can get our hands around this topic, we can live out lives that are richer, fuller, and more deeply satisfying.

7:08 SPEAKER_01: So that's why that I tackled the topic.

7:11 SPEAKER_00: All right. Well, you say, yeah, you come at it from a perspective of experience, right? Lived experience. Yeah. And you know, one of the things you just said, I and you talk about in the book is how we walk around and we run into people at the coffee shop and we say, How you doing? Oh, I'm good.

The Cost Of Overwhelm And Burnout

7:25 SPEAKER_00: How you doing? Oh, I'm so busy, so busy. It's like to say, I'm so busy has become a badge of honor in this in our society. And everything around us coming at us from all different directions doesn't make it any less so.

7:40 SPEAKER_01: No, busy, busy has become a has become the default. Way too many of us live in that constant state of busy where we're always on, we're never off. The technology that was designed to free us has only further enslaved us. And so it's nearly impossible to get any time and space away from the fray. And that's that's frankly a huge problem.

8:08 SPEAKER_00: Oh, no, no question about it. I think it's a big problem for all of us, health-wise, etc. You know, for me, health-wise, I got to the point where I was, you know, I know you know this because you and I've spoken about it. Last spring, I got myself so run down and so stressed out with trying to put in so much time into this building my business and building my brand that I became really, really sick. I mean, I was down and out for months, literally months, you know, put on like 20 pounds of sedentary fat.

8:39 SPEAKER_00: And so I, like you, have really had to have a wake-up call around my own time management. And so many people that I talk to, and so many people every single day at the coffee shop are struggling with time management. And it's just a great thing to have one of the experts in the field talking about us. And I want to tease everybody a little bit because and this is not to be dirty, everybody, so get your mind out of my gutter.

Do Less With 80/20 And One Thing

9:06 SPEAKER_00: But Walt has this amazing thing that he calls the F-word. I love the F word, and we're gonna talk about the F word later and how much you love the F word. I think a lot of people do. So we're gonna talk about the F word later, and just that's a teaser, so you have to wait till the end to hear about the F word and what it means for from Walt's perspective and the perspective of time management. And this is not I I that could go so many directions. Let's just leave it.

12:12 SPEAKER_01: This is a different call.

12:14 SPEAKER_00: Let's just leave it at that. All right, I wanted to start here. I wanted to start with this first concept that's actually the first in your subtitle of the of the book. It's do less, make more, and have fun. So, whoops, don't say anything. Do less. Well, talk talk to me about doing less. And because I really would love to be able to do less.

12:38 SPEAKER_01: So ours is a culture of overwhelm. Yes. Our biggest challenge is not that we have too little. Most of us who are on this call today, our biggest challenge is that we have way too much, way too much coming at us, way too much information, way too much to do, way too many notifications and emails and text messages and alerts, way too much on our plates, way too much on our inboxes. There's just way too much. And endeavoring to do all of that is not sustainable. It's just not possible. It's not sustainable over the long term.

13:20 SPEAKER_01: Even over the short term, it impacts us in the way exactly the way it impacted you, which is that it causes stress, it causes overwhelm. The stress infects every molecule of a molecule of our body, and we become dis-eased. We get sick. And so it's not possible to do everything. And the truth is that when we look at our lives, there are really only a handful of things that are truly important. There are really only a handful of things that lead to the outcomes that we want in our lives.

14:08 SPEAKER_01: He was sitting in his garden one day and he realized that wow, 80% of my peas come from 20% of my peapods. And he looked around at the Italian economy and he thought, wow, 80% of the land in Italy is owned by 20% of the people. And he became curious. He was a researcher. And his rule now, called the Pareto Principle, the 80-20 rule, has been applied across a wide spectrum of the world. And he suggests that 20% of our efforts, 20% of our energy, 20% of our time leads to 80% of our outcomes. If that's true, why not get rid of the 80%?

14:58 SPEAKER_01: Now, there's a wonderful book. I get it after you got mine. There's a wonderful book called The One Thing by Gary Keller. And Keller looks at the Pareto principle and suggests that perhaps Pareto was too generous, that it's not 80% the 20% that leads to the 80% of our outcomes, but maybe 10% that leads to 90% of our outcomes, or maybe 5% that leads to 95% of our outcomes, or maybe even just a handful of things. And so one of the challenges is to identify those things that matter most and really just focus and do those.

15:44 SPEAKER_01: Do less of the superfluous.

15:47 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that makes sense. And I just wanted to add in your book, Power Principles of Time Mastery, you have tools in the back. You can see I have it all earmarked and everything, but you have tools in the back that help people with a lot of the principles probably that we'll talk about today, and about tools just like that.

Values, Boundaries, And Saying No

16:05 SPEAKER_00: You know, what are some of the priorities? What are some of the main things that you should be focusing on? And and it's so easy to say that. I think you know, if you're at all mindful and you realize that you're too busy, you start listening to all the different sites again, which gets you even more busy again. But a lot of people are saying, you know, you need to write this down, you need to do this. But but in all sincerity, the idea of compartmentalizing yourself and compartmentalizing that which is is important is is so important.

16:39 SPEAKER_00: And you also talk about the concept in this regard about how you need to set boundaries. And one of the principles that you I know you talk about is like, and I wrote about this too. I called it no, K-N-O-W. You have the power to say no, N-O. And I and you wrote about that in the book too. I don't know, maybe I stole it from you, but but anyway. But go ahead. So so what do you know? What do you think about the setting boundaries to help us to be able to do less and to and to not try to take on so much?

17:09 SPEAKER_01: So no is a great default. Uh Steve Jobs of Alp Apple Fames once said that he was as proud of the thousands of things that he had said yes to as to the very few things that he had said no to. And so making no vice versa. Yeah, he was proud of the thousands of things that he had said no to, the few things that he said yes to, thank you.

17:35 SPEAKER_01: We can't say yes to everything. There are only so many yeses that we have in our lives. That's right.

17:43 unknown: That's right.

17:43 SPEAKER_01: And so we need to be able to make room for those most powerful yeses. And that means that we need to get comfortable saying no, saying no to the things that don't serve those higher purposes for us. You referred to the exercises and tools in the book. One of the very first exercises I asked people to go through is my values matrix. And it's a very simple exercise. You'd take a piece of eight and a half by 11 paper and you draw a line down the middle. On the left-hand side, you write the top five things that you value most in your life.

18:26 SPEAKER_01: And for me, yes, the values exercise. For me, my top five things are my health and wellness, my relationship with my beautiful wife Ann, who's my business partner, my freedom, my creative life, and the work I get to do in the world. Those are my top five values. Those are the things that I value most. My kids, I value a lot. They're on the top ten. They're not in the top five, interestingly. So those are the top five things I value most.

18:59 SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

19:00 SPEAKER_01: Now, on the right hand column, I ask people to write the top five places or activities that they spend their time on.

19:12 SPEAKER_01: Both lists are just fine. There's nothing wrong with either list. The challenge is that the right hand list often looks like work, work, driving, work, driving. And on the left-hand side of the list is often family, health, marriage. Both lists are fine. Where all of the stress comes from, where all of the of the incongruity, where all of the overwhelm comes from is that we're not living in integrity with what we value. That is, we say we value health and wellness and we never go to the gym. We say we value family and we spend 80 hours a week in the office.

19:56 SPEAKER_01: We say we value lifelong learning and we haven't we haven't picked up a book in the last six months. And so the more that we can get clear on what we value, the more that we can live in integrity with what we value, the clearer we get at those things, around those things, then we're able then to more confidently say no to what doesn't serve what we value most.

20:23 SPEAKER_00: And I know that that's a big what you just said about you know getting away from the things that aren't serving our values is one of the key principles that you live by and thrive on, and you've drilled into my head a million times.

The Not-To-Do List

20:36 SPEAKER_00: And a lot of our friends in both Summit Mastermind and Book Yourself Solid community have heard it from you any number of times. But you said two things that are that are really important, Darren. I I I talk a lot about this concept of congruence too. How you need to be in congruence with your values and and you know what you do every day has to lead you somehow to getting there. The other thing that you that you talked or you didn't talk about, but you get into it's a nice transition, is the concept of the not to-do list.

21:07 SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, well, I I well I I love, I I keep lots of lists. I love lists. Listen, I just I I love in particular love to-do lists. And I love to-do lists so much, Mike, that I often will get up in the day in a in a on a morning and I'll make a to-do list and I'll include stuff on my to-do list that I've already done because I just love checking stuff off. It's so much fun to check stuff off my to-do list.

21:34 SPEAKER_00: That's that's almost the best part, right?

21:37 SPEAKER_01: But but a more powerful list. We talked about no. We talked about no being an important default. No to those things that do not serve what we value, no saying no to those things that don't lead to the highest and best use of our time. Creating a list of things we're going to say no to, creating a list of things that we're not going to do. Not a to-do list, but a stopdoing list. And, you know, this is a great time of year to do that. You know, the holidays that we'll come to very quickly are replete with things that we've done in the past that haven't worked for us.

22:22 SPEAKER_01: We've gone to our brother-in-law's house the last eight years and we've gotten in a fight with them. That's something that ought to go on the not-to-do list. We have, you know, we have somebody who kind of just sucks the soul out of us, who invites me, invites us to a gathering every single year. Say no to that. When I was a single dad raising my boys on my own, you know, there were there was volunteering for this uh board and that board and baking for this thing and baking for that thing and the the request.

22:53 SPEAKER_01: My most important thing was being present to my boys, which meant not being out six nights of the week. It meant saying, my ego got fed by by being asked that wasn't what was most valuable. And so creating a list that we're going to stop doing, all of the crazy boards that we're on that aren't serving those things, all of those commitments that are taking us away from what we met what matters most, all of those things that are distracting us, getting clear on what we should stop doing. A lot of what I talk about is out of sync with the way we we often approach the world, which is to take on more, to assess every opportunity that comes at us and to say yes to everything.

23:45 SPEAKER_01: And a lot of what I talk about strikes people as almost impossible to do. And I just want to reiterate you know, I lived a life for a dozen years where I would get up at 6:30 a.m. when the alarm would go off and go up to wake up my kids for school and come down and make the cup of coffee and go back and wake up my kids for school and go back down and pack the backpacks and go up and wake up my kids for school and run out the door and try to get the files at the from the law office and rush to the daycare and um rush to court and and get to court and only to get the call from the daycare provider that the kid had 102 degree fever or headlights again or both, to come back home to get the sick child to go work at my kitchen counter, to get the kids off the school bus, to do the homework, rush out to soccer practice, cook dinner from a box, go out to staples for the uh for the poster board for the project that's due tomorrow.

Real Life Chaos And Integration

24:46 SPEAKER_01: Why in God's name am I going out to do the poster? I lived this life.

24:50 SPEAKER_00: You just totally stressed me out.

24:52 SPEAKER_01: Well, I just got what I want to share is the the the stuff that we're talking about today is born out of real life and really hard learned lessons.

25:03 SPEAKER_00: Absolutely. And and as I as I shared earlier for those who may have joined late, I ran myself ragged right into the ground last last spring and and I got myself really sick, and and which Just can't afford it. We just can't afford it. And you know, along these lines, and it's we talked about the modern day, especially modern day technology, how it's coming at us from all different directions, and there's so many things that we want to try to do, right? There's so many people that we want to try to interact with, or or whatever the case may be, and it's just impossible to do.

25:34 SPEAKER_00: And I I love you, in fact, I'm gonna watch your face light up when I say this chasing shiny objects, Rol. Yeah, yeah. It's something I mean, I call it shiny toy syndrome. You know, it's like I said in something I wrote where, you know, penicillin can't cure this STS. We talk about that. Talk about how we are so lured, like fish, away from all these, you know, with all these shiny things.

26:03 SPEAKER_01: Yes, there is not a dearth, not a dearth of opportunities.

26:09 SPEAKER_00: That's right.

26:10 SPEAKER_01: If you're in the entrepreneurial space, certainly not a dearth of things to buy or read or try, or we're just we're inundated with shiny toys. And again, coming back to the few that leads to the many, you know, coming back to what serves the greater good, what serves the outcome, and focusing on the few things that really move the dial most. It's it's it's it's less, not more. And that's so hard for us.

26:47 SPEAKER_00: Uh it is, it becomes impossible when you have people talking in both your ears, both of your eyes, all your senses are being inundated and bombarded every single second of every day. And and we we have to master that. And and I guess that brings me to my next point, where you mentioned the one thing. Simon Senek, I've got his book over here, The Start with Why. I think one of the things that I wanted you to kind of talk about and get into, and actually, my friend Gene of Patrickitis just posted a question that's exactly exactly on task with us.

27:23 SPEAKER_00: So, specifically, how do we address the situation while outlined? Sick kid, poster board, blah, blah, blah. And it kind of goes to a life plan and an organizational kind of structure that you have really done a lot of work in creating. And I and I'd really like for you to talk about the big why, the one thing, and how to structure life according to that plan.

27:47 SPEAKER_01: Yes. And there are about three or four topics in there, and and I'd like to get them all. And I really I see also a question from John Best, who talks about the necessity of a life plan. I want to honor Gina's question about uh she asks, so specifically, how do we address the situation that Walt outlined? Six sick child poster board. First of all, years ago, before I entered the the fray, I envisioned this thing called work-life balance. I actually think that that's a little bit of a BS construct.

Life Planning And 90-Day Focus

28:28 SPEAKER_01: I don't actually think there is a work-life balance. I think all there is is life. And we want we want our lives to be rich and full and deeply satisfying. And so what that means is that we need a work-life integration. We need to be, you know, you you you and I have talked about congruency. I like the word in integrity. Integrity not mean honesty as much as the root of the word, the Latin root integer, meaning whole, that we are whole people. And there are times in our lives, Gina, when we're not in balance, that the integration of our lives, the balance is shifted toward our children.

29:12 SPEAKER_01: That, you know, there is a period of time where we're pouring a lot of energy into our family, into our children, into their lives. And we also, you know, that that cliche metaphor of the airline steward, you're getting you're being pushed back from the gate, and the airline steward or stewardess comes out, attendant comes out and says, in the event the cabin loses pressure, oxygen mask will drop down. And in that event, put your own mask on first before you help others. Gina, we need to be mindful of that too, that in those moments, even when we have demands and our values direct us to taking care of our children, we also need to step back and create those boundaries that Bike and I were talking about so that we can nurture ourselves and keep ourselves whole and complete so that we can take care of our children, so that we can take care of our partners.

30:14 SPEAKER_01: And so it's a dance. It's, you know, it's not work and life, it's life. And there are these times where it does feel out of balance. And after we've run out to get the poster board, after we've nurtured our sick child, we must find those places for ourselves. We must have some core practices and disciplines that rest and renew us. When I was in that time, I discovered that I needed to actually step back and get up earlier in the morning. You know, if you look about just about any productivity schema, it says get up earlier.

30:55 SPEAKER_01: During this period of time, I was getting up at 4:30 in the morning. And from 4:30 to 6, that was my time. I was reading, I was writing, I was journeying up, journaling, I was reflecting, I was nurturing me. Still to this day, I get up at 5 a.m. because that time between 5 and 6:30 is so precious to me. It's a time where I can just take care of me, and we have to take care of ourselves if we're going to take care of our children sick or well. And so I'll segue from that, Gene. I hope that helps.

31:29 SPEAKER_01: It's not an easy thing. I'll segue to the more meta question that John best talks about, which is life plan and planning. You know, unless we actually plan, we allow life to happen to us rather than us happening to life. I'm a big fan, and there are tools and the power principles of time mastery around planning your week. And so sitting down and creating a comprehensive plan for the week.

Discipline, Habits, And Mornings

31:59 SPEAKER_01: And we can go deeper into that, Mike, if you want to. But, you know, addressing John Best's question of having a life plan. You know, you and I as lawyers, we talk about business plans, we talk about estate plans, we talk about financial plans, we plan ourselves up the yin lane as lawyers, but very few of us have a life plan. Very few of us know what really matters over the arc of our lives. And when we're informed by what it is that we want to create over the arc of our lives, that arc becomes much more powerful, much more effective.

32:36 SPEAKER_01: You know, you referenced Simon Sinek's start with why, the why of our lives, what is the mission that drives us? What is the call that drives us? What gets us up in the morning? What brings us passion? What brings us joy? What is that thing that we want to do in the world? What is that mark we want to leave? And so having some idea about that grand arc then informs how we create our months, our years, our weeks, and our days. And it allows us to bring more congruity and integrity to our lives.

33:13 SPEAKER_00: You know, along those lines, one thing we were talking about the other day in our in our coaching uh group call is the idea of taking your life into chunks. Chunking is a big concept, and this this new, I don't know how new it is, but it's really impactful when you think about things in smaller chunks. What do I want to do for the next three months? Right? 90-day plans are amazing. The the one year or the one-quarter year or the something, you know, there's there's like three or four good books out there.

33:43 SPEAKER_00: Michael Hyatt has a planner. Oh, and planners. Let's let's talk about planners. You know, Gina's Gina, from a from a practical perspective, I create and one of the things I wanted to give people at the end of this is a planner that I've created. And I'm really starting to believe that in life, what everything we have going on now, I've I've got everything here, right? Like most people do, right here on my on my phone. But it this device, as great as it is, doesn't really allow us to project out and take a look and say, what do I got coming next week?

34:16 SPEAKER_00: Because I'm it's really like I'm looking at the day and you can't really see, you can't really see the next week or the next month. So I'm starting to go back to the concept of the good old-fashioned, you know, give me a give me something to tangible that I can look at and go forward. Bang, exactly. So as much as I hate to say it, you know, I'm just now creeping out of the dark ages into the IT world. And now I find myself having to creep back in as far as getting a planner together. So so from a very practical perspective, habits can be taught, and we need to we need to teach ourselves habits.

34:51 SPEAKER_00: And this time management concept is a big habit that we need to learn.

34:56 SPEAKER_01: I love the use of the term habit. I I have adopted the the word discipline. It's not a popular word.

35:07 SPEAKER_00: Neither is habit.

35:09 SPEAKER_01: My business partner, my wife Ann, she says, with discipline comes freedom. And when we actually create disciplines for in our lives, we do have more freedom. Certainly, you know, the disciplines for me, my morning disciplines now are my morning journaling pages, my reflective reading, my running practices, or my wellness, my fitness practices. I'm a long-distance runner. And so those practices, my my sitting meditation practice, I've been a vipas and a meditation, a meditator for some 25 years now.

35:54 SPEAKER_01: It's probably the single most important discipline in my life. It's probably the thing that has changed up the game most significantly for me. It was probably the single thing, Gina, that kept me sane during my years of being a single dad was my meditation practice. But those disciplines happen every single day. And here's what's what's interesting is if their disciplines, if they're practices, if they're habits, we do them. And we don't entertain feelings. Something, again, not terribly uh popular.

36:33 SPEAKER_01: But uh I got off stage. I love to speak, as you know. I I was doing a leadership program for a group of graduate students in a business school. I got off stage with this one young man and came up to me and he said, you know, I really I was really motivated and inspired by what you said, Mr. Hampton. I really, you know, I I really want to go home and start doing some of this. But he said, you know, sometimes I just don't feel like it. And I got right up into his face like that. And I said, I don't give a flying what you feel.

37:08 SPEAKER_01: And he jumped back. And I said, here's what's true. Feelings are fleeting. But if we know our why, if we know that life plan, if we have a sense of what the grand arc of our lives is, if we know what matters most, if we know what we really value, then we go and do those things.

Head Trash And Want-To First

37:27 SPEAKER_01: We pay attention to those things, we create habits around it. Ann and I, we have a rule around our running practice. The rule is that we never, ever, ever ask each other, do you feel like running today? Because I can promise to you that most days in West County Cork, Ireland, particularly this time of year where it's dark and spitting rain, the answer is no, we don't feel like it. But we value our health and wellness above everything. We value the energy that it brings to us so that it makes us resourceful to do this work that we do, that we're passionate about it.

38:05 SPEAKER_01: So we don't ask where we feel like it or not. We have a habit around it. And so creating habits that nurture us, that feed us, that allow us to take care of our sick children, our parents when that happens, that allow us to show up for our clients and the people we want to serve. Those types of habits, they're really good and they make us more resourceful and powerful.

38:29 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good, good habits. Good habits are hard to break. And I loved I love the story where you told me one time Ann rolled over in bed and said, You know, do you feel like it today? That's the rule. You're not allowed to ask each other if you feel like it.

38:42 SPEAKER_01: You just go and it was like she had it was like she had said some type of profanity. It was like, what are you talking about?

38:50 SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about running, running, she was talking about. You know, and by the way, he sells himself short when he says he's a long distance runner. He is a one of these crazy people who runs 50 miles and hikes up big giant mountains, and you know, he's that guy. Okay, um, okay.

39:10 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, so I called you out on that one. Like you talk about meditation, and I tried meditation. You know, my mind works a million miles an hour, as do most of us nowadays, because we're so inundated with everything else. And I just keep telling myself, you know, it's enough for me, or I can't do it, or it's you know, my mind won't stop running. Mine won't, and in and you would say, and I I know what you're thinking and what you would say to me about this, and I have my word for it, you have yours.

39:38 SPEAKER_00: So, what is it, Walt? What are you saying?

39:41 SPEAKER_01: It's head trash, it's head trash, Mike.

39:42 SPEAKER_00: It's head trash, and that's what I wrote down here. See, I wrote it right there head trash. So so many of us get stuck in saying, I can't do this. Yes, that sounds great, Walt, but you know, you know, the kids have soccer, they have to get here, they have to get here. Head trash, man. We are just so full of it in every facet of our lives that that it we almost can't escape from it. And I know that you are, man, it's like you are the the Cape Crusader against all things head trash. So, well, can you just talk a little bit about that?

40:19 SPEAKER_00: And then we'll look at Gina Mills' question here about and here's the actually this for Gina Gina Mills, not Gina Petrachitis. Gina, your question fills right into this where it says, how to instill good habits when others are not supportive of you doing these habits. And to a degree, there may be head trash here, but that's a very real concern as well about what your interpretation of others is.

40:41 SPEAKER_01: So it's a really great question, and we'll we'll incorporate it into the answer, Gina. Thank you for that wonderful question. So, as a coach, as an executive coach, as a consultant, a lot of people will come to me and they'll say, you know, I don't know how to do that.

41:04 SPEAKER_01: I want to do it, but I don't know how to do it. And what I'll usually say in less artful language is that's a BS question. Yeah. The how-to question is a BS question. Because what's true is if you come to a call like this call, if you come to Mike Maknac's threshold or my doorstep, you are someone who makes stuff happen. You are a doer, you are achiever, you are somebody who does stuff. And if you look over your shoulder at your life, you will realize that anything that you have really, really, really, really, really wanted to do, you've done.

41:50 SPEAKER_01: And you never asked the question, how do I do it? You just did it. You didn't wring your hands around how do I get into law school. You mean you thought about it, but you just did it. You didn't ask yourself, how am I gonna pass the bar exam? You settled down and you did it. When we want something, we do it. And so the how-to question begins this head trash. It comes back to that idea of what do I really want to do? What do I want? The want to comes first.

Environment, Accountability, Consistency

42:22 SPEAKER_01: If I really want health and wellness, if I really value that, if I can connect that with a bigger why that I want to be here on this planet when my precious little son or daughter gets married, I want to dance at her wedding, I want to be at that medical school graduation. I value my health and wellness because I value the people I serve in the world as a coach, as a consultant. I want to be powerful and effective for them. Then you don't wring your hands about the how or about incorporating habits.

42:59 SPEAKER_01: You do it. So that's a meta principle around creating habits. The actual dialing in of habits actually requires some time. It requires some discipline. It requires a little bit of latitude for you because it takes time to dial in habits. The research says 66 days to dial 66 consecutive days to dial in a habit. I think it's more like 90. I think it's three months that you practice something to dial it in. And sometimes it's about anchoring a habit to another habit. Funny little story. Here in Ireland, we have an older cottage that overlooks the sea, and it has a water heater that is not automatic.

43:51 SPEAKER_01: You actually have to flip the switch. So we go out to run in the morning, I come back, I forgot to flip the switch, the water's cold. That's bad. The next day I go out to run, I come back, I forgot to flip the switch, the water's cold, that's bad. My running partner, my wife, she's upset, that's bad. Okay, we need a new habit. I need to get the switch on. I keep forgetting to put the switch on. I need a habit. What do I do already? Oh, I go into the kitchen in the morning and I flip on the coffee.

44:23 SPEAKER_01: I flip the switch, flip the switch, flip, flip the switch. So I marry, I anchor the habit, I anchor the thing to a thing I'm already doing. Flip the coffee switch, flip the water heater switch. Ah, anchor, anchor, anchor, anchor. It actually dials in the habit a whole lot faster. We can do this with journaling, we can do this with meditation, we can do an anchoring in a lot of different ways. And the more we stay at that habit, the longer the the the more it gets hardwired into us. So it just becomes something like brushing our teeth.

45:00 SPEAKER_01: If I didn't run six to 10 miles in the morning, believe it or not, it would be like, well, that's kind of weird. It's like I forgot to brush my teeth. I gotta go out and run. So when we do something long enough, it's just a habit. Now, Gina's Gina Mills's question is is a fascinating question because we are the average of the five people that we surround ourselves with. Average in terms of what we do, what we wear, what we drive, where we live, what's in our bank account, what our expectations are, what our hopes and dreams are.

45:36 SPEAKER_01: And there's nothing wrong with average. Average is okay, except if we want more than average. And then we need to likely up the game with whom we surround ourselves, which is why you and I have coaches in our lives. I believe that good coaches have coaches. I have two coaches in my life. I go to personal and professional development conferences, I surround myself with people who are further on the path with me because I never want to be the smartest person in the room. I always want to be called higher and to be challenged.

46:11 SPEAKER_01: And so, Gina, I want to surround myself with people who are supportive. And a lot of times, if those unsupportive people, those naysayers are really close to us, it's really challenging. If it's a spouse, if it's a teenager that's critical, that's really hard. And there isn't an easy answer for that. But if you can get an accountability partner, if you can get a coach, if you can get out in and among a community that really wants to reinforce that habit and support that habit, that's a powerful thing to do.

46:48 SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I see a great um uh question by uh John Best around habits and achieving goals. You know, goals are great, and I'm a big uh goal achiever. I do like to tag we're working on the seven summits, climbing the highest mountains on each of the seven continents in the world. Uh great to have big goals. And The journey is the thing. And we get to goals by showing up powerfully every single day, by staying consistent. You know, you mentioned mentioned me running 50 miles. I don't, I can sit here on this call today and look you straight in the eye and say, I have no idea how to run 50 miles.

The F-Word: Choosing Fun

47:35 SPEAKER_01: It seems incomprehensible to me, even if I even though I've done it now a number of times. Incomprehensible. I do know how to run a step. I can run a quarter mile.

47:49 SPEAKER_01: Habits, instilling habits, achieving goals, achieving anything great in life is not about the size of the step. It's about the consistency of the action. Just staying at things day after day after day, being consistent. Being consistent in the marketplace, being consistent in our relationships, being consistent in our business lives. Being consistent is that's what gets us to places, gets us to magical places, being consistent, having that discipline to stay the course.

48:26 SPEAKER_00: One of these things where, you know, the can you still hear me well?

48:30 SPEAKER_01: I can I can you are frozen, but not in that that that really uncomfortable looking. But I can do this fine.

48:37 SPEAKER_00: I don't know why it's frozen, but yeah, as long as I'm not uh not unflattering, Mike.

48:42 SPEAKER_01: You look fine.

48:43 SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay. It's one of those things where I and I firmly believe this, you know, sometimes it's not so much about the result as much as it's the process of getting you there. How you know what did you do? What did you learn along the way? And yeah, there are a lot of people out there who aren't supportive. And and Gina, some people aren't supportive of us because they see something in us that they don't want, or they they don't want us to succeed because they're afraid of what might happen to them if we do.

49:16 SPEAKER_00: There are those who may, you know, have a problem with our own success because they'll think that we'll change and that will therefore change our relationship. So as you contemplate why people may not be supportive of your efforts and your process and your own journey, you may want to just give yourself a time and give yourself a break, is what was saying. Give yourself the opportunity to reflect and say, you know, why may my husband, my wife, my my significant other be saying that they don't want me to go down this path?

49:45 SPEAKER_00: And and it may be something that's very much on them and not on you. I I firmly believe that to be the case.

49:52 SPEAKER_01: I I love that, Mike. And I think that there's so much truth to that. That, you know, if you're if you're upping your game, China, it that can be threatening to other people. That can that can be very uncomfortable for other people. Because if you're upping your health and wellness game, for example, what does that mean for them if they're not doing that? And and and so often the story is, as Mike suggests, about them and not about you. And ultimately, ultimately, you need to live the life that's in an integrity for yourself.

50:26 unknown: Yeah.

50:27 SPEAKER_00: All right, here we are. Well, we can't, hey, look, I'm not frozen anymore. We came to we came to the time now, okay. And and and we I told everybody we'd be here for 45 minutes, knowing full well that we'd probably be here for an hour. And I want to I want to be respectful of people's time. I just have two more things that I want to ask you, but but let's not let's not prolong the agony anymore. Tell everybody what the what the F word means to one Walt Hampton. JD.

50:55 SPEAKER_01: Everybody knows what the F-word means.

50:57 SPEAKER_00: What what are you talking about? What is it, Walt? Tell me, please. I don't know. It's fun. It is fun. That's right.

51:07 SPEAKER_01: So you know what? I think that joy is our birthright. Our lives on this planet are so brief. And you know, when I look around, what we talk about our why. I'll just share a little bit of my why for why I do what I do. I look around and I see so many people who, if not living thorough's lives of quiet desperation, it's at least this quiet despondency that they're worn out, they're worn down by all of the pressures of the world, by all of the stress, by all of the overwhelm, by all of the stuff. And and and there's this weariness.

51:56 SPEAKER_01: And I believe that we're called to lives of joy.

Gratitude, Service, And Next Steps

51:59 SPEAKER_01: I believe that we have the opportunity, if not the responsibility, to wake up every single day excited and on fire about our work, about our health, about our relationships, about our finances, about our, and that we have the opportunity and perhaps even the responsibility to go out and use those gifts and talents that are uniquely ours to share and to share them with all of our heart and our soul with joy. And that in the midst of it, we get to have fun, that life can and should be fun. You know, Gina, going back to your precious little child who's ill, you know, to it matters less when we show up with our children what we say.

52:46 SPEAKER_01: Our children learn what we model and to go out in the world and to be models of joy, to be models of living a rich, full, deeply satisfying life. That's a great gift to give to our children. That's a great gift to give to the world. And so I love the F-word.

53:06 SPEAKER_00: Who doesn't? Well, and you know, you said, you know, I love when you say it's almost like our obligation to get out there, find the people that we're meant to serve. And, you know, hopefully some of you guys that are on the call today are here because you're you're you're following me and the in the work that I do, you're interested in what I'm doing. And I and I I actually really, really enjoy this work. And we're talking about a not-to-do list. This to me is stuff that I get to do. This is my my get-to-do list that that you know, building this brand and helping to build the the guardian program that I've built and all of this and all these supportive people.

53:41 SPEAKER_00: I get to do this work because and I and I love it, and it's fun for me. You know, thank you for your time today and everybody that's on the call, thanks for chipping in. I can't tell you how many people have reached out to me and said, I can't make the call, can I still watch it? So I'm gonna get the recording, I'm gonna send it out to dozens more people. And please share, share, share, share. This information is free, and everybody can value by listening to it. Always encourage everybody to stay proactive and stay proficient, and you will change lives, including your own.

54:14 SPEAKER_00: And I just want to say thanks again to to my friend and mentor Walt here, and thank you all for being part of this. And you're so welcome.

54:25 SPEAKER_00: Well, it's dinner time, so go eat your dinner.

54:27 SPEAKER_01: Bye for now, everybody.

54:29 SPEAKER_00: Take care, everybody.

54:34 SPEAKER_00: As we wrap up today's conversation, I want you to take a deep breath. If you're listening to this while you're sitting in a hospital parking lot or hiding in the laundry room just to get a moment of peace, uh, or maybe if you're just staring at your mounting to-do list while your heart is heavy with worry because of your loved one, know that you know clarity is not a luxury.

Closing Reflections And Gentle Action

54:57 SPEAKER_00: It really becomes your compass. Walt reminded us today that busy is a choice, but for many of us it has become a survival mechanism. We stay in motion so we don't have to feel the stillness. But it's in that stillness and in the brave act of saying no to the things that drain us that we fe that we find strength. And there's where we keep holding it together. Remember, your worth is not measured by how much of yourself you burn away just to keep others warm. Building a not-to-do list or setting a boundary is not an act of selflessness.

55:32 SPEAKER_00: It's actually an act of stewardship over the only life that you have. If your circle doesn't understand your need for boundaries, look for the people who do. Find the ones who celebrate your no because they know it's making room for a more sustainable yes. Go easy on yourselves this week. Pick one tiny microscopic habit that you can anchor today. Let go of the head trash telling you that you aren't doing enough. You are doing the hard work of love, and that requires a rested soul. Until next time, keep holding it together, but remember it's okay to let go of things that aren't yours to carry.